Tag Archives: sweet peas

Non-stop travelling for the last month, preceded by tedious and back breaking weekends of shifting buckets of soil from the top of the hill to the bottom, has left the garden thoroughly neglected.

Is it bothered? Barely! With the exception of a major grass cutting operation, it is chugging along regardless and I’m feeling just a little unnecessary.

The rudbekias and dahlias are looking lovely, the pelargoniums are still going strong and pentemons are still flowering. Colchimums, nerines, verbana bonaries and the autumn primulas are coming to life. Late lillies and tame crocosmia are still in bloom, a deep purple clematis is looking striking in a cherry tree and the late sowing of godetia (after slugs ate the first seedlings) are pink, frilly and very cheerful.

Blueberries are ready for eating straight from the bush and a fine apple crop is shaping up both front and back. Surprisingly, given the gales we had in Scotland while I was in the US, the sweet peas at the front are still in full bloom, despite me not being around to deadhead them.

Some serious weeding and tidying is required, along with some deadheading and pot revitalisation, but I must admit I was expecting to return to a lot worse.

A garden a world away from my own

Although away on a business trip, I had the pleasure of making a visit to the Botanic Garden at the University of Berkley, California. Right up in Strawberry Canyon, on the Hayward Fault in the hills above San Francisco Bay, the garden is both hot and sunny (seasonally arrid) and yet still gets plenty of rain in autumn and winter. It is not dissimilar to Mediterranean climates like Cyprus.

I was expecting American, arrid, Mediterranean and desert planting – but the garden was so much more than that. A lovely old rose garden (heavenly musky smell), a fabulous little garden of foodstuffs of the world (where I saw my first caper plant!) and a lovely herb garden.

The edible garden was quite incredible – the climate had made all the fruit and vegetable goes mad – there was a purple sprout stalk taller than me and the most amazing purple beans. Even some plants (like the caper) that I had simply never seen before, or didn’t know were edible.

It is rightly described as one of the United States best plant collections, but it was also a stunning series of gardens. The gardens are displayed in a series of geographies, with California naturally a major part.

There were particularly interesting Japanese and Chinese gardens, also an impressive Australian garden. Though I’m not usually into grasses, there was a beautiful drift of South American plain style planting which caught my eye – golden knee high stalks, mixed in with cotton grasses. Not a look I’d ever want to replicate, but beautiful in this context. Even the cacti, which usually leave me cold, were stylishly planted and very impressive.

Now if I could just replicate this combination!

Some lovely flowering plant combinations meant I took loads of pictures in the vague hope I will remember them and replicate them – nowhere was this more true than in the Japanese & rose garden.

I enjoyed it more than the famous Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco and the gardens at Stanford that I’ve visited in previous years.

If you’re ever in the Bay area, I highly recommend at trip over to Berkley’s Botanic Gardens – and if you’re feeling fit and the weather is not too hot, the walk up Strawberry Canyon from Berkley campus is also a lovely one. The smell of eucalyptus, rosemary and various pines and cyprus will transport you to another world!